Boogie Eyes-On

Share.

EA's new Wii-exclusive dance game is totally funkadelic. First screens inside.

By Micah Seff

During GDC a few weeks ago, IGN got a chance to sneak a peek at the newly announced Wii rhythm game, Boogie. Unfortunately, rather than giving us a look at the game behind closed doors in relative comfort, EA stealthily unveiled this interesting-looking game during the middle of its SSX Blur party at some random bar in San Francisco.

Keep in mind that this game caught us totally off guard when EA first showed it. We fought our way through the throngs of assembled gaming journalists to snag a good vantage point. To our dismay, we ended up standing behind Reggie, and -- as any good Nintendo fan knows -- that man is massive. None of us were quite tall enough to see over his imposing figure without much difficulty, but believe us when we say that we struggled to get as much of an eyeful as the situation would allow.

We can see it now: Rayman vs. Boogie dance-off.

The first thing that we noticed when EA began to show off the game was that the art style was really impressive. The main character looked like a discoed-out version of Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants, and was surrounded by what we could only assume were hordes of bloodthirsty Pikmin. The game certainly had a unique look to it, and the whole presentation fit together very well, as the on-screen character began to sway back-and-forth in time to the music. It may not have been technically all that impressive, but it had enough flair and originality that we couldn't help but find ourselves drawn in by the game's visual appeal.

From what we could gather, Boogie appeared to be controlled by use of both the Wiimote and the nunchuk. With the Wiimote, players could point at the screen and direct a pair of eyes around the dance floor. Doing this would cause the character's upper body to contort in correlation to eyes' movement. The nunchuk, on the other hand, was used to manipulate the lower body of the character. Using these in conjunction could get the jovial little disco dancer to pull off all sorts of remarkable moves from the Hustle to the Melbourne Shuffle to the Turkish Twist.

What was interesting about all this was that the game didn't appear to work like other rhythm-based games, where the player tries to sync up his actions with on-screen cues. Instead, it seemed like gamers could move their character around anyway they chose, with better timing and rhythm yielding better results score-wise. Occasionally, a prompt would appear on screen, indicating a particular Wiimote/nunchuk movement that needed to be pulled off.

Despite the fact that the settings under which we saw the game were far from ideal, we still managed to get a substantial feel for what Boogie is all about. Unfortunately, although EA did mention microphone support in the game, the reps on hand did not demo that aspect of the game, or even talk about how EA is planning on implementing it. Even so, Boogie intrigued us due to its artistic merits and unique take on rhythm games, despite its early development status. We hope that the next time we get a chance to check out the game we aren't plastered and stuck directly behind a massive corporate mogul like the Regginator.

Be sure to check out EA's first screens in our gallery below, and keep your eyes locked to IGN Wii for more Boogie coverage soon.